


Never Sleep Easy

by confiscatedretina



Category: Tomb Raider & Related Fandoms, Tomb Raider (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-04 07:33:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1770877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confiscatedretina/pseuds/confiscatedretina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short Tomb Raider stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bloodied

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt from [ohk-eshivar](http://okh-eshivar.tumblr.com/post/88487378840/whered-this-come-from-lara-whered-all-this) on tumblr.

"Lara? Sweetie?"

Sam's voice comes to me through a haze of adrenaline and vague pain. The fog is lifting and I blink rapidly, trying to reorient myself.

"Oh my god. Lara? You're covered in blood!"

Am I? I look down at my hands to see the knuckles scraped and raw. There's red all down my front. Damn. I liked this hoodie and I hate shopping for new clothes.

"...Sweetie? Are you alright?"

I prod a split in my lower lip with my tongue. Salt and metal fills my mouth as my sense of taste returns and I realize my nose is stinging. My fingers come away wet and red when I touch it.

"Got in a fight," I mumble, not meeting her eyes. "Down at the pub, I think."

"Lara..."

She reaches out to me and I flinch. Sam pulls back as I shuffle past her, my own hands stuffed in my hoodie's pockets. They're crusty with soaked in blood and I wonder how much is mine. Grimly, I hope whoever got in my way came off worse, but I don't remember what happened properly. It's all just a haze of memories and sharp, hard survival instincts. I slump down on the couch, blinking dry eyes furiously as if I had any tears to shed.

"Sam?" I count the cracks in the ceiling and try to focus. "I think I need help."


	2. Just Fine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When she stopped to think about it, Lara had to admit that she rather liked hospitals.

When she stopped to think about it, Lara had to admit that she rather liked hospitals. There was something about the sterile white light and the antiseptic smell that was comforting. They weren't the sort of places she'd want to stay for long but, outside of her own home, they were the only places she particularly felt safe.

Well. Almost.

There was no place on earth truly safe and she knew that. The look in Conrad Roth's eyes the last time she'd seen him had forever lodged that truth deep in her mind. After that she was never without a weapon, a plan. It had proved a very useful habit since even her own home wasn't free from danger after a certain point. Sometimes, very late at night when she couldn't control her own thoughts, she missed the innocent girl who'd boarded the _Endurance_ all those years ago.

In their own strange way, hospitals reminded her of that girl. Many of her memories of that fated voyage were vague; flashes of pain and smells interspersed with events etched vividly into her synapses (a man's face just before a rockfall crushed him to death, the taste of sea air after the storm while she looked over a wrecked ship, a wolf's reeking breath as it yelped and coughed blood in her hair). After all of it, the thing that stood out most was nurses talking quickly in Japanese and the pain in her side shifting from the throbbing of infection to the burning of antibiotics. Someone in all of that chaos told her she was alright, she was safe. Even then she knew that wasn't true but she had just nodded. It made other people feel better in certain circumstances if they thought she trusted them.

Even now, while the doctor re-wrapped her leg, one hand warm against her knee, she was looking at the implements in the room, deciding what could be used in defense and how, looking for different escape routes. She had, naturally, left her guns at home (there was a knife tucked securely in her left boot). Unbidden a little smile came to her full lips. A large part of her found the juxtaposition of her deep paranoia in this conventionally safe place very funny. The other part still remembered how sharp a scalpel against flesh was when a hired assassin threw it at her during an overnight stay after surgery.

"And you're all set, Ms. Croft," the doctor says, patting her leg.

"Thank you," she gives him a warm smile and a polite nod.

"Everything looks good down there. Just try to take it easy on that leg and keep taking the antibiotics. You'll be fine."

"Of course."

Her smile as she walks out is broad, her stride sure.


	3. A Riddle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked: could write about like when Lara has to answer a riddle from the Greek Spinx in order to save Sam? I'm just so into Greek artifacts right now and I dreamed of the Greek Spinx.  
> [Asynca](http://asynca.tumblr.com): Wouldn’t it be fun to do it the other way, though? That Sam has to answer a riddle to save Lara?
> 
> Special thanks to [guiltyfandoms](http://guiltyfandoms.tumblr.com) for providing me with an awesome riddle. :)

“Sam, don't-!”

Lara's cry is cut off with a suddenness that makes Sam's heart skip a beat. Her shoes squeak on ancient tiles as the woman rounds a corner and comes to an abrupt stop. The first thing she sees is her girlfriend sprawled, unnaturally still, between a pair of massive feline paws.

“Lara!” she gasps.

The paws shift, claws as long as Sam's arm glittering in the light of a dropped torch.

“A riddle,” a feminine voice hisses far overhead.

Sam looks up, straining her neck to see a pair of enormous breasts and, nearly hidden in the catacomb's darkness above them, the outline of a woman's face. Acid green eyes watch her with the cold detachment of a predator observing prey. In the shadows, Sam can just make out the hint of massive feathered wings outstretched and the motion of a cat's tail lashing.

“What?” her voice is tiny.”

“A riddle,” the sphinx repeats. “Answer right and you may pass; wrong and I feast on two fools.”

Between the monster's paws, Lara groans and shifts. Sam swallows the lump in her throat at the sight of four jagged slashes on Lara's arm, blood staining her tank top.

She clenches her fists. “Okay. Ask.”

A razored smile flashes in the dark and the sphinx begins to purr. "I cannot be seen, my size is unknown. I can only be found by what is missing. What am I?"

For a moment, Sam's brain freezes up. Fear stops her heart at the monster's words. Time seems to slow and the woman watches red-tipped claws flex in preparation for the kill.

Later, she will tell herself that the answer must have come from one of the space shows Lara was watching in preparation for this trip. But now, as the sphinx's paw begins to lift, Samantha Nishimura feels the touch of an ancient mind on hers, a heart older than modern civilization beating once more in her chest. Himiko plucks the answer from between the stars and Sam gasps, shudders.

“A black hole!” she blurts out.

Snarling, the sphinx takes a step back. She hisses what is certainly a profanity in ancient Greek and shivers out of existence, her outline dissolving into the shadows.

On the floor, Lara coughs and groans. Sam is at her side, fumbling in her backpack for the first aid kit before the other woman can fully sit up.

“...Sam?” Lara blinks slowly.

“Shh, I'm right here, Sweetie.”

“What happened?”

Himiko smiles at the edge of her soul, serene.

“I'll tell you when we get out of this death trap,” Lara gives her a stern look and Sam tries on her most sincere smile. “Promise.”


End file.
